Chapter 206: Abomination

He knew the Church could cover up many sins, but they could not survive a war with the Northern Vanguard over an attempted assault on the Archduke’s heir in broad daylight.

If Kaelus killed a Bishop here, it would be a massacre.

The High Priest immediately threw Bishop Thorne ruthlessly under the carriage.

"This is an outrage! An absolute abomination against the Light!" the High Priest declared, his voice ringing with desperate fury.

He pointed a trembling finger toward a group of paladins guarding the nave. "Paladins! Retrieve Bishop Thorne from the eastern corridor immediately! Strip him of his vestments! He is excommunicated as of this second!"

The High Priest turned back to Kaelus, bowing so deeply he practically folded in half.

"Your Grace! I beg of you, do not stain your blade with his filthy blood!" the High Priest pleaded rapidly. "The Church will handle this severe violation of our holy edicts! He will receive one hundred lashes of the discipline whip in the public square, and he will be banished to the salt mines of the barren wastes! Please, accept the Church’s swift justice!"

Kaelus stared at the bowing High Priest.

He looked at the terrified paladins sprinting down the hall to arrest the soaking-wet pervert.

His killing intent did not fade, but he paused. He looked down at Seraphina, who was still clinging to him, her face buried in his chest.

If he slaughtered a priest here, it would traumatize her further.

It would cause a political firestorm that would distract from his primary goal: securing her registration.

Kaelus slowly slammed Requiem back into its scabbard. The sharp CLACK echoed like a gunshot.

"One hundred lashes," Kaelus confirmed, his voice a low, lethal promise. "If I discover he received ninety-nine, High Priest, I will return, and I will freeze this entire Spire into a glacier. Am I understood?"

"Perfectly, Your Grace! Perfectly understood!" the High Priest gasped, wiping a waterfall of sweat from his brow.

"Good," Kaelus sneered, his aura retracting slightly, the frost on the floor halting its advance. "Then let us conclude this miserable bureaucracy so I may remove my daughter from this den of vipers. Bring the testing crystal."

***

The High Priest, desperate to appease the Archduke and rush them out of the building before Kaelus changed his mind about murder, practically sprinted to the altar.

He retrieved a small, flawless, transparent quartz crystal resting on a velvet pillow.

He hurried back to Kaelus and Seraphina, holding the pillow out with trembling hands.

"The... the registration process is simple, Your Grace," the High Priest stammered, avoiding eye contact with the terrifying warlord. "The Lady merely needs to place her hand upon the crystal. The artifact will resonate with her core, illuminating the stone with the color of her primary elemental affinity, and the brightness will determine her mana density tier."

Kaelus knelt down, keeping one arm securely around Seraphina’s waist.

He looked at her, his violet eyes flashing a silent, urgent reminder.

Water... Be pathetic... Be weak...

Seraphina sniffled, maintaining her tearful facade.

She reached out with a small, trembling hand, her fingers hovering over the transparent crystal.

Inside her chest, the Supreme Dark Core was a swirling, violent ocean of power, eager to reach out and consume the magic in the stone.

Seraphina slammed a mental vault door shut over her core. She compressed the darkness, suffocating it, locking it away behind her willpower.

She scoured the very bottom of her magical reserves, searching for the weakest, most pathetic, thinnest thread of moisture she could manifest.

She gently touched her fingertips to the crystal.

For a second, nothing happened.

And then, the crystal let out a faint, pathetic, incredibly underwhelming little bloop sound.

A dull, sickly, pale blue light slowly crept into the center of the quartz.

It wasn’t a glowing, radiant aura.

It looked like someone had dropped a single drop of blue food coloring into a dirty glass of tap water.

The crystal sputtered weakly, struggling to maintain the illumination.

The High Priest stared at the crystal.

He frowned, leaning closer, his brow furrowing in deep, professional confusion.

"A Water Core," the High Priest murmured, his eyes squinting as he analyzed the magical signature. "But... this is highly unusual. The density reading is practically non-existent. It is below a Tier-1 classification. And yet... the internal resonance of the crystal... it feels... heavy. As if the stone is straining under an invisible pressure."

The High Priest, despite his cowardice, was a seasoned magic user.

He could feel the suffocating gravitational weight of Seraphina’s suppressed dark mana leaking against the edges of the crystal’s sensory array, threatening to crack the stone from the inside out.

"Your Grace," the High Priest began cautiously, looking up at Kaelus. "I sense an anomaly within the reading. I believe a secondary, deeper diagnostic test is required. If we could move the Lady to the primary sensory array in the lower chambers—"

Kaelus von Nacht did not hesitate.

He deployed the ultimate, undisputed tactical nuke of Imperial politics.

He didn’t draw his sword.

He simply reached into his coat and casually adjusted his cuff.

"A secondary test," Kaelus mused, his voice dripping with smooth, icy condescension. "How fascinating. Tell me, Your Eminence, how long has it been since the Vanguard executed a full, comprehensive financial audit of the Holy Church’s tithe collections in the Northern Provinces?"

The High Priest’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

"I believe it has been a decade," Kaelus continued, his violet eyes locking onto the priest with a terrifying, predatory smirk. "My Chief Aide, Alistair, was recently mentioning that he suspects a discrepancy in the Church’s reported charitable donations. He suspects millions of gold coins are being illegally hoarded. If you delay my departure for a ’secondary test,’ I will assume the Church is actively attempting to hold my daughter hostage. And I will immediately dispatch a legion of accountants to tear your northern monasteries apart, brick by brick, looking for my missing gold."